Home health providers may have some additional financial aid in the not-too-distant future, as the federal government reportedly inches closer toward disbursing another round of CARES Act funds.
As they wait for details, home health providers and other Medicare-reimbursed organizations on Friday received new reporting requirements and deadlines for the COVID-19 relief dollars they received during the public health emergency.
Established under the CARES Act, the Provider Relief Fund (PRF) is meant to support health care providers and other groups impacted by the pandemic. In total, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is distributing $178 billion to home health providers, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), hospices and others on the front lines of the coronavirus response.
Prior to Friday, the deadline for providers to report on how PRF dollars were used — and to return any unused relief – was June 30. But LeadingAge and other aging services advocacy groups have been calling for an extension, noting how not all providers received money at the same time and how many were still seeking clarity on what COVID-19 expenses are eligible under the financial lifeline.
“[Providers would] like a little more clarity on what actually is going to get reported or count as expenses,” LeadingAge Vice President of Health Policy and Integrated Services Nicole Fallon told Skilled Nursing New prior to Friday. “I know the prior administration tried to leave things sort of open-ended, with the idea that if they tried to list everything out, they would miss something that was important.”
The availability of PRF funds is now based on the date the payment was received, superseding the mandate that all payments be used or returned by June 30, according to HHS.
“Recipients are required to report for each Payment Received Period in which they received one or more payments exceeding, in the aggregate, $10,000 (rather than $10,000 cumulatively across all PRF payments),” department officials wrote. “Recipients will have a 90-day period to complete reporting (rather than a 30-day reporting period).”
The PRF Reporting Portal will open for providers to start submitting information on July 1.
“From the beginning of this pandemic, health care providers have gone above and beyond to care for their patients in extremely difficult circumstances that caused significant financial hardship,” Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Acting Administrator Diana Espinosa said in a statement. “These updated requirements reflect our focus on giving providers equitable amounts of time for use of these funds, maintaining effective safeguards for taxpayer dollars, and incorporating feedback from providers requesting more flexibility and clarity about PRF reporting.”
At the very beginning, HHS had set a deadline of Feb. 15, 2021, as the first PRF reporting deadline, but the reporting requirements were formally delayed in January.
As for additional funds being released, executives at Sabra Health Care REIT (Nasdaq: SBRA) and CareTrust REIT said at an investor conference this week that they expect $10 billion of the remaining roughly $24 billion in CARES Act funds to soon be disbursed.
The original idea of the Provider Relief Fund was to help home health providers and others cover the costs of personal protective equipment (PPE), workforce testing and more.
In October, HHS amended rules to allow providers to use PRF money toward lost revenue that’s potentially unrelated to COVID-19.
“After reimbursing health care-related expenses attributable to coronavirus that were unreimbursed by other sources, providers may use remaining PRF funds to cover any lost revenue, measured as a negative change in year-over-year actual revenue from patient care related sources,” HHS said at the time.
While many home health providers have leaned on the government support, others have declined or returned all funds, concerned about public perceptions, audits or future clawbacks.
Additional reporting by Maggie Flynn.
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